Notre Dame fans may soon have a chance to root for a champion. / Matt Cashore, US Presswire

by Mike Lopresti, USA TODAY Sports

by Mike Lopresti, USA TODAY Sports

Echoes awoken, thunder shaken down, and now everybody else is chasing Notre Dame, just like the glory days when all the legends were built.

They've been saying at Notre Dame they weren't worried about what they couldn't control. They said they would not be caught up in the BCS clamor. They said they hadn't done that all season, and look where it had gotten them.

Unwavering focus, they said, is the only way -- and maybe it is. Because now, suddenly, look where they are, at the top of the heap, where the Irish once built all that aura, but not lately.

Kansas State and Oregon are gone, done in by pressure or fate, or Baylor and Stanford. The BCS door is open. How many Novembers turn out like this, when the upsets spring out from hidden doors, and what seemed like A turns out to be B, or C.

Notre Dame began Saturday as the odd Irish out and ended it No. 1, a la Holtz and Devine, Parseghian and Rockne. It is yesterday once more.

So now it is Notre Dame and ... who? Alabama back again, the SEC harder to kill off than ants? What an argument this could be. Nothing is simple in the big picture.

They said at Notre Dame they never worry about the big picture. They worry about the next game, and now the next game is a whopper. The 12th game. The USC game. The game that could mean a national championship invitation with no questions asked.

That was expected months ago, except the Trojans were supposed to be the invitees. Now they will be the underdogs on their own turf, and injured quarterback Matt Barkley is probably out.

Before Kansas State and Oregon wandered into their traps Saturday night, the Irish had made their point in the afternoon. Notre Dame is getting better. Notre Dame is getting more complete. The Irish did all they could to show that, hitting the opponent that showed up for senior day right between the Wake and the Forest.

The seniors barely had time to finish hugging their mothers before the game and the Irish had a 14-0 lead, on their way to 38-0. Now they have given up nine touchdowns in 11 games.

The poor Demon Deacons. Notre Dame wanted to pound out a message, and the Deacons got to be the keyboard. The Irish went by their 11th win like a mile marker on the interstate.

"I told them tonight I was proud of them," coach Brian Kelly said afterward. "I voted them No. 1 in the country (in the USA TODAY Sports coaches' poll) for a reason, because I think they're the best team in the country. And I think they played like that tonight.

"I think offensively we're growing. We saved the best for our last home game."

A lot of the proverbial style points can be found in a 38-0 walkover by a team that has had its share of close calls at home, the psychological arguments that can help close the gap in voters' minds. But they said they are not concerned with style points.

"Where the hell did style points come?'' nose guard Louis Nix III said. "I hate that. I don't believe in style points. I believe in winning. That's what you do in football.''

They said they are not obsessed with the what-ifs. They are obsessed with who's next. "We're not going to move ahead at all," quarterback Everett Golson said. "We'll just focus on USC."

They said they would not be hanging on Saturday night's televised Oregon and Kansas State games.

Wide receiver TJ Jones: "I really don't pay attention to college sports when I leave here, to clear my mind. I'm probably going to stay as far from that as I can."

Linebacker Manti Te'o: "I'm not worried about that. I'll go eat, go to sleep, wake up tomorrow and figure out what happened."

The guess is Te'o found out what happened a lot sooner than that.

They said it has to be this way, that is all they know.

"All that noise can't be possible if we don't beat USC," Te'o said. "When you think of it in that aspect, it's pretty easy to avoid everything."

Added linebacker Danny Spond, "Everybody likes to talk about it, there's no doubt about it. But this is how we're trained. It's who we are. We've gotten pretty good at it."

Saturday was not the time to worry about the BCS anyway. Saturday was for Te'o to fights tears when he hugged his parents before the game, and then when he left the field of Notre Dame Stadium for the last time.

The poster player for this Irish revival, one of Hawaii's proudest native sons who has fashioned a Heisman run with interceptions and tackles, he came out of the locker room after the game wearing enough leis to stock a luau.

"A lot of lasts," he said of this day. But it had been what he had dreamed about. "Everything and more."

The BCS? Wrong letters. USC.

"It's a game we can actually do something," Te'o said, "taking this program to places it hasn't been in a long time."

They said it does not matter that USC is a four-loss flop. A chance to go 12-0 and finish the job against a traditional rival that has relentlessly beaten the Irish in recent years is enough.

"Our guys know what's at stake now," Kelly said.

He said that early in the evening. By midnight, things had changed. Just another curvy November day in the BCS road. At Notre Dame, they say they know the only way to travel such a road. One game to go.